The use of jargon

Taken from a recent appeal decision involving the erection of 102 dwellings on two fields in Surrey (DCS Number 200-008-115):

‘Time depth’, as referred to by the Council, can derive from intactness and continuity of a landscape….

If that’s what they wish to discuss there is plenty of vocabulary available to them within the English language to do so without resorting to the use of jargon. We already have legalese and journalese. We really don’t need planning-ese as well.

A "net health gain" principle should be embedded in national planning policy to ensure that new developments do not contribute to the problem of air pollution, a report by government agency Public Health England has recommended.

The government's Airports National Policy Statement (ANPS), which sets the policy framework for the expansion of Heathrow airport, should be "set aside and reconsidered" if it is found to be legally flawed, the High Court has been told on the first day of a legal challenge against the airport's expansion.

Plans have been approved for 1,500 homes on an employment site in Salford Quays, including a tower of up to 46 storeys, after officers concluded the development would not compromise neighbouring employment uses.

Plans have been approved for a mixed-use scheme with over 1,100 homes on a site currently used as a retail park off London's Old Kent Road, after planners concluded that the scheme's negative impacts, including the loss of retail space, would be compensated for by "major regeneration benefits".

The government has said it will "robustly defend" itself against a legal challenge which is seeking to have the approval for the expansion of Heathrow airport sent back to Parliament for reconsideration, as the case opens at the High Court today.

The High Court has upheld an inspector's ruling that the size of an area of hard-standing at a fencing company's yard in Surrey was so far in excess of what was required by a building on the site as to render it not ancillary to the building.